


seven-hundred thirty-two (and sometimes less)

by cxsmic



Category: League of Legends
Genre: ... sort of, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Psychological Trauma, Soulmate-Identifying Distance Counters, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trauma, and i mean a fat ass age difference homie, ekko's lore is fucked up man, it's not a tag but i will make it one, probably horribly inaccurate estimates of distances and time taken to travel said distances, they do not meet until ekko is 18, we talkin like 20 years, wingman illaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 16,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23090626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxsmic/pseuds/cxsmic
Summary: "the prettier the flower, the farther from the path"
Relationships: Ekko/Pyke (League of Legends)
Comments: 158
Kudos: 200





	1. resonance

**Author's Note:**

> hEY so im a clown and started writing a new fic even though i already have one that i'm working on because idk im stupid i guess 
> 
> anyway there aren't enough ekko ships (OR pyke ships for that matter) so im fuckign,,, im making a new one. here you go.

Pyke is seventeen when the numbers appear on his wrist, and twenty-two when the mile markers begin their inconsistent ticking.

He likes watching the distance tick up and down where it’s written, just below the heel of his hand. It helps curb the frustration of a missed catch, the anxiety brought on by the unsettling darkness of the sea. As he grows older and embarks on longer, more dangerous voyages, he often finds himself at the edge of the deck, leaned up against the railing, staring out over the water while he absently runs his fingers over the untidy lettering. It’s a small point of comfort, a tiny refuge from the reality of storms and sea monsters, long days and nights at sea, and air thick with the smells of blood and salt. 

It seems like his soulmate is always on the move. With the exception of nightfall, where the numbers still for around six hours each day before they’re up and at it again at the crack of dawn. It earns a fond smile most days, seeing the numbers begin to slowly tick up and down just as the sun crests the horizon. Some days they stay fairly centralized, covering maybe a couple of miles in a day (and on some occasions, almost none at all). Other days, Pyke has seen them travel just under twenty miles in about two hours.

When he's on the docks in Bilgewater, his soulmate is always at least 732 miles away. 

The closest he ever gets is during the voyages in the direction of the mainland. It closes the gap a bit, sometimes by a couple hundred miles, but not enough. Never enough.

He’s a little bit embarrassed to admit how many times he’s fantasized about making off with a boat and sailing into the night as the numbers tick downwards, not stopping until the counter finally hits zero. Sure, maybe it’s a bit unrealistic -3 a boat that can get you past the monsters of the deep in one piece is monumentally expensive at best, and he knows Bilgewater's ship owners would sooner be shot than allow someone to steal their vessel — but hey, a guy can dream, right? 

For now, though, it remains nothing more than that — a dream. Even as the voyages grow more dangerous and more lucrative, even as the years stretch into a decade and then some. He saves, he takes jobs that are more dangerous but pay much more. He saves, he scrounges, he hones his harpoon in the wee hours of the morning, and he waits. Still, it never seems to be enough. 

Seven-hundred and thirty-two miles, and sometimes less. 

* * *

The numbers have been written on Ekko’s wrist since the day he was born. By his seventeenth year, the novelty has worn off somewhat. 

At around four years old — before he's found his place among the Lost Children of Zaun — Ekko spends hours while his parents are at work simply staring at the numbers on his wrist, fantasizing about what kind of person his soulmate might be. 

Some days, the change in the numbers is relatively small - they travel 10 or 20 miles in a day before returning home in the middle of the night or the morning after. Other times, they’ll travel hundreds of miles and be out for days, sometimes weeks. The possible explanations for this are numerous, all of them intriguing. A travelling merchant? An intrepid explorer? A religious missionary? No matter how far they travel, though, they always seem to return to the same spot - 738 miles from his home in Zaun.

Sometimes the numbers tick down — six-hundred, five-hundred, four-hundred — far enough that his heart skips a beat and he wonders if his soulmate is finally coming to see him. But every time, they inevitably turn back, and he’s left feeling disappointed, and very much alone. 

On the night of his tenth birthday, after his parents have fallen fast asleep in their chairs, Ekko makes his way up to the edge of the city. The sun is already beginning its slow ascent over the horizon by the time he scrambles atop one of the outer walls and checks the numbers on his wrist. The distance reads: 732 miles. 

Seven-hundred and thirty-two miles, and for the first time in his life, Ekko wants to leave.


	2. stutter

Pyke is thirty-two when the numbers on his wrist turn into an unintelligible mess of symbols and letters.

He only notices because of a sudden twisting, nauseous feeling in his gut, and he instinctively looks to his wrist for an explanation. His heart drops, but the numbers are back to normal before the dawning horror can really register. The counter just keeps ticking along serenely, in a slightly different position than before.

It happens intermittently now, usually two or three times in a row, and frequently enough that the nausea barely fazes him anymore. 

He tries not to think about it too much.

* * *

Sometimes, Ekko wonders what happens to his soulmate’s counter when he uses the Z-Drive. He thinks about other timelines, wonders in how many of them he let his soulmate’s wrist go blank with no explanation.

He decides it’s better not to think about it.

* * *


	3. asynchrony

Pyke’s not really sure what to expect to see on his wrist when he comes back to life — after all, he’s never died before. Still, it comes as a bit of a shock when he finally hauls himself up into a shipwreck just off the slaughter-docks and glances at his wrist to find the numbers continuing their slow, arrhythmic ticking. 

The chill pulls him from his thoughts, and he shudders. He’s never really thought about just how cold the ocean is. It’s only now that he’s drenched in seawater and his blood no longer runs warm that he realizes how really, _really_ fucking cold it is. Wrapping his arms around himself does no good, either — they're just as icy as the rest of him. His hand closes like a vice around his mark, and he wonders vaguely if it would be possible for him to die a second time due to exposure. He guesses probably not. 

The only thing to counterbalance the cold is the anger that kindles in his gut, foreign rage sparking flames in his hands and running through his veins like liquid fire. It’s the kind of rage that burns, the kind that kills. A part of him wants to ignore it, look back at the numbers on his wrist that promise everything will eventually be okay, bring himself him back to equilibrium.

But he's cold. He's _so_ cold, so he lets the heat flow through him, seeping down into his bones, clogging his mind with an ugly black smog. 

He’s not sure exactly when the list appears in his hand, but when it does, he tucks it into his vest and slips back into the water, swims towards the docks that loom up as jagged black shadows in the darkness. The numbers on his wrist tick to a halt. 

Seven-hundred and forty-six miles. 

* * *

Ekko is fifteen when his counter disappears. 

He’s walking along a steel beam as the rest of the orphan gang chatters along behind him. They’re suspended over a fifty-some-foot drop, and he’s already had to rewind once to save the others from a few nasty falls. When the numbers disappear, it feels like a punch to the gut, and he stops dead in his tracks — Ajuna careens into him from behind, nearly sending him tumbling down to the ground below. 

It takes three more rewinds to make it to the edge of the beam in one piece, and when they finally do step off onto solid ground, the others regard him with confusion and concern as he bolts, throwing a vague excuse over his shoulder. 

He runs until his lungs burn and he can’t hear Ajuna calling his name anymore. He tucks himself into a small alleyway and collapses to the ground, drawing his knees up to his chest and tucking his arm into the space between. There’s this morbid curiosity, this horrible desire to _check_ even though he already knows, _he knows he knows he knows,_ but the urge is too strong so he lifts his shaking hand up in front of his blurry eyes. 

Blank skin, no numbers. 

For a while he just sits there, shell-shocked and numb, until the tears start rolling down his cheeks and he has to muffle his sobs with his fist, lest something unfortunate find him sitting there, prone and vulnerable. 

He’s not sure how long he sits there, curled into a ball — an hour? Maybe three? — but it’s not until he can no longer find it in himself to cry any more that he catches a glimpse of something new on his wrist. Slowly, he raises his bleary eyes to stare at the lettering now scrawled in red across his wrist. 

Seven-hundred forty-six miles, like blood on his skin. 

He lets out a choked sob and buries his face in his hands. 

* * *

It takes every ounce of willpower for Ekko to make it back to his apartment, and even more to not start crying again the moment he gets there. His parents are already asleep when he gets home, and a small plate of dinner sits on the table with a note. As much as the thought makes him want to puke, he forces himself to sit down and eat what little they’ve been able to scrounge together for him. As he clears away the dishes, his eyes trail over to his parents’ hands, linked together between their chairs as they sleep. The numbers on their wrists read: zero miles, zero feet. Ekko feels sick. 

He starts wearing gloves after that. 

* * *

Seven-hundred and thirty-two miles, watching the sunset from the outskirts of Zaun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> riot games why is ekko's lore so sad


	4. tether

It’s after three people have died on the blade of his harpoon that Pyke realizes he can no longer leave Bilgewater.

He tries. Once, then twice, then a third time for good measure. Every time he swims close to whatever invisible boundary separates the Island waters from the open ocean — his counter reads 724 miles — the deep-seated rage returns in force, and a new name appears on his list. The feeling is jagged, sharp-toothed, like a harpoon in his back, yanking him under the waves and gagging him with seafoam. 

He makes his third attempt under a full moon, its pale light bleaching the waters silver. As Pyke slows and then stops, breaching the surface with a frustrated growl, three new names inscribe themselves on his list. Phantom hands claw at his limbs and clothing. 

Bilgewater is a cage — but then, perhaps it always was. However, he has begun to harbor a deep suspicion that the rage he feels deep inside no longer belongs to him. Not that it matters. 

The ocean seems to rumble beneath him, and he turns back towards Bilgewater, diving beneath the waves. 

The anger in his veins has long turned from fire into ice, and he no longer minds the cold. 

Seven-hundred and thirty-two miles, and never less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha.... "harbor".....
> 
> edit: also wo O W y'all thanks for all the nice comments inspiring me to keep writing this ;w;


	5. benumb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i belted this one out in like 30 minutes and u know what i think i enjoy writing characters having meltdowns a little too much. it's cathartic.

Ekko is seventeen when Ajuna is killed by that whistling bastard from Piltover. 

Ekko is seventeen, and Ajuna is twelve. Ajuna is twelve and he'll never never get any older, because Ekko sent him out to pilfer some stupid fucking snacks and some Piltie decided that nobody would care about one more dead kid from Zaun. 

He sits with the body until all traces of warmth have left the boy's skin. He wants to stay longer, but the sound of footsteps starts to echo around the corner and he knows he has to leave. He pulls off Ajuna's goggles, clutches the Z-Drive close to his chest, and runs.

As he races home all he hears is the sound of his footsteps thudding in his ears, out of sync with his racing heartbeat, and the harsh drag of breath in and out of his lungs. He runs home at a dead sprint, not slowing or stopping until he’s inside, the door shut and bolted behind him. His breath comes in ragged gasps, and his head is pounding, and he can still feel that bastard’s throat convulsing under his hands, hear the faint rattle of Ajuna’s dying breaths ringing in his ears. His hands shake uncontrollably. 

As if in a trance, he stumbles forward, sets the Z-Drive and the goggles on the table, and goes to retrieve his tools. He grabs for a wrench from the box, but it slips from between his trembling fingers and clatters against the linoleum. He pauses, staring at the discarded tool for several long moments, then takes a wobbly step back, blurry eyes slowly lifting and scanning the room. 

The last vestiges of adrenaline trickle away, and his knees buckle underneath him — he crumples to the floor and screams, long and loud. He screams and screams and doesn’t stop until his voice physically gives out, throat raw and eyes burning with unshed tears.

It'll be about seven hours until his parents get home from the factory — he needs to tell the Lost Children what happened and then get to work on fixing the Z-Drive. Instead he sits on the floor for two hours, curled into a ball, and cries.

There’s a small part of him, deep inside, that wants to pull off his glove and take comfort in the romantic notion that there is someone out there waiting for him — someone who would love him unconditionally, who might comfort him if they were here.

The larger, bitter part of him doesn’t, because his counter went still two years ago and he knows exactly what it will say. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> b RO. that chronobreak comic HURT me bro. FUCK


	6. pulse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw // suicide mention (slightly ambiguous but uh yeah)
> 
> stuff is starting to Happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u thought i was dead bitch???? think again,,,,, 
> 
> please note that i went back changed the way the counters work. they now only display miles until you get within a mile of your soulmate - only at that point do they switch to showing feet. certain details in this fic make more sense that way.

Ekko is eighteen and has not checked his counter in one year and twenty-two days. 

It's the anniversary of Ajuna's death, and he should be working on a scholarship essay for his application to Piltover's Academy of Techmaturgy. Instead, he sits silently in front of the Lost Children's mural, running his fingers over the grooves in Ajuna's old goggles, which have only grown more scratched and faded since the boy's death. The draft of his essay is folded haphazardly in his back pocket. 

Almost dazedly, he spits into his hand and rubs the tarnished metal with his damp fingers — a vain attempt to remove some of months' worth of accumulated grime. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work. 

Slowly, carefully, he places the goggles back in place below the mural. Remarkably, the memorial has stayed intact all this time (though not without a great deal of preservation efforts on Ekko's part), all of the trinkets — including Ajuna's goggles — remaining where they had been left upon their owners' deaths. However, it has not gone unchanged. 

Two new faces have been added to the mural since Ajuna. The first was Nine, who was ten years old, and one of Ajuna's closest friends alongside Ekko. An orphan since age three, Ajuna was the kid's only company for the first half of his life, and every one of them could tell that the sump-snipe's death had hit him the hardest.

Only a couple of months after Ajuna's death, Nine disappeared without a trace, save for his favorite stuffed rabbit, which had been left under the mural next to Ajuna's goggles. His body was found three days later, battered and broken, at the very bottom level of the Sumps. His face was added to the mural the next day. 

The second face belongs — belonged — to the artist of the mural herself. Nova had been a spry, starry-eyed thing of fourteen, who had always dreamed of attending Piltover's prestigious Institute of the Arts. She had perished in the factory explosion that killed her parents, sprinting headlong into the flames in a vain attempt at rescue. It had been the golem Blitzcrank who, at Ekko's behest, had eventually pulled her body, burned beyond recognition, from the flaming wreckage. He couldn't say how long he had sat there with her in the dying, green-tinged light of the chem-fire, but he remembers he had eventually been dragged away, kicking and screaming, by the golem. Blitzcrank had only offered him a toneless "MY APOLOGIES" before grappling away, leaving him alone in a dark alleyway. 

It had been Nova's younger sister, Mira, who had taken up her sister's mantle, adding Nova's face to the mural a couple of days after the explosion. Ekko remembers finding her there in the middle of the night, silently painting the lines of her sister's face, tear-stained cheeks glistening yellow in the candlelight. He hadn't been able to look her in the eye for a few weeks after the fact. 

Two more children dead in the span of a year. And what to show for it? Children are dead and the slums are still filthy, factory workers are still toiling, Zaunites are still dying and those Pilties are still sitting fat and happy in their gods-damned _"City of Progress"._ Tens, hundreds—hell, it could be in the thousands by now, for all he knows—of rewinds, and Zaun is still the same place it's always been. 

. . .

He's thought about it a lot. He's thought, and thought, and thought some more. Even now, he's still thinking. The day after his eighteenth birthday, he had finally sucked it up and started filling out all those college applications he promised he'd never make. There's always this nagging feeling at the back of his mind, though, even when he's up late at night working on those stupid essays about _"What are your greatest strengths?"_ and _"What's the biggest hurdle you've had to overcome in your life?"_. This sense that something's missing, that there's something he forgot to do. 

The scratch he gives his wrist at the thought is almost reflexive; his mind spins at the implications. He knows what he needs to do, really — he just can't seem to make himself do it.

Can't — or couldn't. Things are different now. Ajuna is dead. Nine is dead. Nova is dead. Mira's once-happy spirit is dead. The visionary leader he had once dreamed of being is dead. In their place is Ekko — just Ekko. He's eighteen and jaded and terribly alone, carrying shattered time and a counter wrapped in leather.

But if nothing else, he's always been a curious guy, never the type to let a question go unanswered. 

With that thought thrumming in his head like a marching chant, he goes to his workshop to gather some necessary equipment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got a sudden burst of inspiration to write this and again belted it out in like an hour. may or may not be bad but i want to post so i will god dammit
> 
> if you're wondering about the timeline of this, ekko stopped checking his counter a few weeks before ajuna died, but up until his death it was less about him being bitter and more that he didn't see the point. now he doesn't because he's bitter.


	7. egression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im back and this is BARELY proofread

Ekko is eighteen years, five months, and twenty-eight days old when he leaves in the middle of the night, carrying only a satchel, his bat, the Z-Drive, and the clothes on his back. 

His parents have long fallen asleep by the time he leaves the house, his bag crammed with all the food he can carry. He’s been preparing nonstop in the weeks leading up to this — doing some odd repair jobs here and there, pilfering what little he dares from the Pilties passing through (who already have more than they really need anyway), before spending it on all the non-perishables he can afford. He packs the food, a change of clothes, and his Z-Drive and related devices, and leaves. His college essay is still tucked into his back pocket. 

He doesn’t tell the Lost Children where he’s going — only that he’ll be gone for a while, and to lay low until he gets back. A few tears are shed, but it is, for the most part, a solemn departure. 

For his parents, he leaves only a handwritten note on the table, weighted down by a socket wrench. _I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. There’s something I have to do. -Ekko._

He doesn’t give them any more information than that — he doesn’t need to. They know him well enough to know what he plans to do, and they know he can take care of himself. All there is for them to do is sit and wait - gods know, though, that none of them have ever been much good at that. 

He casts one last, lingering look over their sleeping faces before shutting and bolting the door behind him. 

* * *

From his apartment, it’s a nearly two-hour scramble up to the border of Zaun. He’d considered asking Blitzcrank for help with this part, but he honestly doesn’t think his insides could handle the amount of swinging and lurching that would entail, and he’ll never in his life be willing to spend money to take one of the conveyors. In any case, he makes the trek on foot, and it’s about one in the morning by the time he finally emerges, cautiously, into the streets of Piltover. 

He’s pretty sure he’s been here once or twice, when he was really little, but damn if it isn’t just as impressive as the first time. It makes him pause for a moment, just drinking everything in — neatly cut cobblestone streets, intricate buildings cut from stone and wood, accents of metal (and not just steel, but _gold_ , _actual gold_ ) glinting in the moonlight. The opulence is… disgusting, really. Still, he allows himself to just stand there and stare for several long moments, until he starts getting some weird looks from the few passersby roaming the streets. Reluctantly, he moves on. 

He walks for another twenty minutes or so, stopping in the midst of a deserted park to get his bearings. The very concept of a park is novel; Ekko finds himself transfixed by the shoots of grass licking at his boots, and the whispers of the leaves from the trees scattered around him. For a moment, he’s struck by the urge to simply sit and wait here until sunrise, to see what the colors will look like in the daylight. With the way his wrist is tingling, though, he doesn’t think he can stand to wait another night, especially not in Piltover. 

He pauses, tears his gaze away from the grass to look at his hand. The dark leather of his glove wraps around his palm and wrist, exposing his knobbly, calloused fingers to the chilly night air. Hesitantly, he reaches out; his fingers pause at the clasp, heart pounding so hard he can feel his pulse in his fingertips. The whole world seems to hold its breath as he pulls fabric and metal apart, tugging the leather off with a single, shaking hand. 

His counter reads: seven-hundred and twenty-six miles. 

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, tilting his gaze up to look at the sky. 

The stars are almost never visible from Zaun, hidden from the lower levels by miles of distance and layers of smog. Here, they’re as clear as anything, bright like silver in the night sky. It’s dizzying, just how many of them there are — on any other night, he could lay here for hours just watching them, tracing patterns in the night sky. 

Instead, he lowers his head and starts walking. There are seven-hundred and twenty-six miles in front of him, and they’re not going to cross themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally we're gettin somewhere


	8. exodus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calculated risks are taken. Fortunately, Ekko's always been pretty good at math

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm BACK >:) this one's a long one
> 
> edit: made it so ekko is on the boat for like 5 days instead of 2, for a more realistic sailing time

It's two-thirty-eight in the morning when Ekko arrives at the docks in Piltover. There are still a few hours left before dawn breaks, which is good, because he'll need the cover of darkness for the next part of his plan. 

He calculated the direction his counter points toward a few years back, two years or so before Ajuna had died and he had stopped looking at the numbers. The miles stretch out into the open ocean; the only inhabitable place in that direction that could fit the bill would have to be Bilgewater. That is, of course, assuming that his soulmate isn't actually dead somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. But the numbers still move around a little bit — usually only a few miles at the most, but still — and regardless, he figures people with dead soulmates don’t usually have their counters reappear. Probably. Hopefully. 

After thirty minutes, Ekko manages to scout out a ship that suits his purposes. Cargo ships destined for Bilgewater aren't hard to find by any means, but he needs one that he can effectively hide inside of until his arrival in Bilgewater. He eventually spots the one he's looking for — a hulking mass of nets and timber casting long shadows across the docks, with a lackadaisical crew who look like they'd rather be anywhere but here. Something seems to itch at the back of his mind then — foreign, almost like deja vu. Thinking it might be a soulmate thing, he gives it a moment, hoping more will surface, but his mind comes up empty. He brushes it off with a vague twinge of disappointment. 

It takes three rewinds and a couple of near-misses to get inside the cargo hold undetected, and then he has to rewind again after he accidentally knocks over a barrel of gunpowder in his frantic scurry to hide, nearly blowing himself to bits in the process. The cargo hold is, fortunately, chock full of things to hide behind — crates of ammo, tools and weaponry of clear Piltoveran make, as well as boxes of expensive materials and fabrics, alongside unlabeled boxes of dubious origin. At a second glance, some of this stuff looks like it's probably illegal. He decides not to think about it too much. 

He waits there for two hours in the pitch-black of the cargo hold, praying he remains undiscovered. It’s dark and chilly and it smells like salt and mildew, and his legs are starting to cramp from where he’s sitting crammed between a stack of crates and the wall. He’s starting to wonder if this is as good of a plan as he first thought. However, that line of thinking is promptly cut off as, with the sound of grinding wood and metal, the boat gives a sickening lurch beneath him. Startled, he latches on to a nearby crate to steady himself, and after a moment, he collects himself enough to realize what’s going on. The boat has begun to move. 

A spark of excitement ignites in his gut. For a fleeting moment, Ekko considers trying to sneak onto the upper deck, so he can stand there by the railing and watch as the shoreline recedes behind him. Considering the exhaustion beginning to settle in his bones, though, he reluctantly decides that such a venture wouldn’t be worth the rewind it would inevitably cause. Shifting his legs into a slightly more comfortable position, he hunkers down to wait. 

* * *

The voyage is rough for the first hour or so, the boat bouncing and rocking violently as it makes its way out through the waves towards the open ocean; after the four rewinds it took to get on the boat, the turbulence does not go over well with Ekko’s stomach. After the boat finally makes its way out into open ocean, and Ekko’s stomach has stopped trying to eject itself from his body, he tentatively downs a couple of crackers and a quarter of a bottle of water. He waits for about an hour before indulging in some dried fruit — he has more than enough supplies to last him, he’s sure, but he figures in this case, it’s better safe than sorry. A rewind won’t save him from starvation. 

...Well. He supposes it could definitely help him out if he needed to steal food. But he figures he had better try and stay out of trouble while he’s in Bilgewater, if he wants to keep his blood inside of his body. The archipelago is unfamiliar territory, and he’s done his homework — he’s under no illusions about how dangerous Bilgewater can be. 

He estimates it to be about dawn by the time he’s finished eating — lethargy is setting in, and at this point he would like nothing more than to take a nap, but he doesn’t trust that the crew won’t come down here during daylight hours and he definitely doesn’t want to be caught in his sleep. Instead, he wraps himself in some sort of soft sheet pulled from one of the crates and busies himself with rearranging the contents of his pack. 

After he’s organized and reorganized and spent a good hour creating various structures out of granola bars and packs of crackers, he gives up and turns to staring at the numbers on his wrist, watching in rapt fascination as they tick down one by one in a steady rhythm. After this, too, becomes dull, he turns his eyes to the ceiling and strains his ears for the sounds of the crew meandering above. He can’t hear much — snippets of conversation, spoken in thick accents and seafaring lingo he doesn’t understand. Still, it’s something to do. 

At some point during the day, one of the ship’s crew members actually does come down into the cargo hold, which is probably the most excitement he’s going to get for this whole trip. He’s pretty sure he almost has a heart attack when the footsteps wander perilously close to the pile of crates that hide him from view — soon after, the man apparently spots what he’s looking for, as Ekko hears a soft grunt of “There yer are.” from the other side of the crates. The footsteps then retreat to the opposite side of the hold, and he hears the sound of something being pulled out of a box. Finally, the loud creaking of the hold’s stairs signals the man’s exit, and there’s the sound of the door shutting and bolting behind him. Ekko breathes out a sigh of relief. 

At what Ekko can only assume is about seven-o-clock in the evening, he notices the crew members above decks are beginning to grow louder and more boisterous; from the sound of it, they’ve begun to pass around flagons of mead, shouting and laughing, playing poker and doing all the other sorts of things a drunken sailor would do on a boat in the middle of the ocean. It’s definitely more entertaining to listen to than what he was able to hear earlier, and he finds himself having to stifle a few laughs of his own at some of the filthy jokes they bark at each other. It’s the kind of humor that would make his mother blush, he thinks distantly, his smile wavering ever so slightly. 

Things quiet down at what he estimates to be about one or two in the morning — in the meantime, he entertains himself by listening to the conversations from above, checking his counter, and building card towers from a deck he had offhandedly stuffed into his bag (you never know; maybe his soulmate would prefer they get to know each other over a game of Blackjack). The activity is made significantly more challenging by the swaying of the boat as it cuts through the water, and it’s enough to keep his mind busy for a decent while. 

By the time things mellow down above decks, Ekko’s hands are beginning to tremble, his eyelids leaden and threatening to fall shut at any given moment. After his tower collapses for the fourth time in a row, he packs up the deck of cards and stuffs them back into his bag, wrapping the sheet tighter around himself and settling back into his corner with a soft sigh. A short pause, then he he sits back up, rearranging the bat and the Z-Drive to sit on top of him while he stuffs his bag between his head and the floor as a sort of makeshift cushion. It’s about as comfortable as laying down on a bag of rocks, but it’s slightly better than the splintery wood floor, so he’ll live.

Ekko yawns; it’s been a couple of days since he last slept, and since he hasn’t even got the rush of adrenaline to keep him going at this point, he feels more exhausted than he has in a long time. Staring blearily up at the wooden ceiling, his eyelids flickering traitorously, he raises his wrist one last time to check his counter before he falls asleep. 

The numbers read: four-hundred and thirteen miles. 

He has just enough awareness left in him to smile slightly at it before sleep takes hold, and he finally drifts off. 

* * *

The ship reaches the Bilgewater docks in late evening four days later, just as the sunset is beginning to tinge the horizon delicate shades of pink and orange. After so many days crammed into the cargo hold, Ekko had woken up that morning with aching joints and a horrible crick in his neck, and spent the rest of the journey in a rancorous mood. Breakfast consisted of dried fruit, a protein bar that tasted like dirt, and half a bottle of water; as he's done for the past few days, he spent most of the day building half-assed card towers, kicking at the pile of crates, and staring at his wrist, watching with growing anticipation as the numbers ticked ever downwards, twisting his stomach into knots. 

As he feels the ship making its way into the harbor, the crew shouting to each other above deck, Ekko springs into action. He straps the bat and the Z-Drive to his back and stuffs the blanket in his satchel before slinging it over his shoulder, crouching in the semidarkness and staring watchfully at the door to the hold. He ends up wrapping his Z-Drive in some canvas pilfered from a nearby crate — even disregarding the mohawk and the big white hourglass painted on his face, the Z-Drive will definitely attract too much unwanted attention if he carries it around in the open. Better safe than sorry. And by sorry, he means dead. Or somewhere close to it. 

It takes him a grand total of six rewinds to make it off of the ship unnoticed. On the first attempt, he wastes too much time on picking the lock to the hold; the other five attempts are merely a matter of figuring out how to sneak past the various crew members without getting caught. When he’s finally able to emerge out into the open, eyes slowly adjusting to the light, he finds himself awestruck by the view. 

He’s… honestly not really sure what he expected Bilgewater to look like when he came here; the name of the place doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence. He certainly didn’t expect it to be this big, though. Towering arches of stone rise up above him, littered almost haphazardly with all kinds of wooden structures, linked by bridges and wooden walkways like the one on which he now stands. The architecture is a fascinating mix of wooden fishing shacks and what look like repurposed temples of ages long ago; lanterns glow in the dimming light of the evening, casting everything in a warm but eerie light. The place is littered with ropes and flags and netting and wooden beams; the buildings jut out from the stone at strange angles, starting at the places where the cliffs meet the waves and stretching up, up, up into the thick plumes of fog overhead. The sheer _height_ of the place reminds him distinctly of Zaun; it causes something warm to settle comfortably in the pit of his stomach, and he can’t help but grin. _This place would be great to just climb around and explore,_ he thinks. 

It takes him a few minutes to come back to his senses, standing there and taking in the scenery with a mix of awe and calculation, mapping out all sorts of possible routes through the cliffs and across the bridges and walkways. When he finally remembers what he’s supposed to be doing, he immediately glances down at his wrist. His counter is covered, once again, by his leather glove — surreptitiously, he undoes the clasp, holding his wrist close to his body, and pushes the leather up just enough to take a look at the counter. 

_Fourteen miles_ , in untidy red script. 

Using the position of the boat as a reference, he quickly gauges the direction he needs to go; the counter directs him towards the other end of one of the towering rock arches. Once again, a grin slowly creeps its way across his face. It’s a bit of a trek — not more challenging than anything he’s done before, but certainly a hike. Several hours walk, at least, and plenty of time to get a good look at the sites and the architecture along the way. He re-clasps his glove over his counter and adjusts the position of his satchel on his shoulder, one hand shading his eyes from the glare of the sunset as he squints off into the fog. 

_Fourteen miles_ . So close — incredibly close, really, though it may not seem like it on foot. _My feet are definitely going to be killing me after this,_ he thinks semi-regretfully. _I just hope it’ll be worth it._

Ekko sets his jaw, gives his head one final shake to psych himself up. _It_ will _be worth it. No matter what. It_ has _to be._

He repeats that thought over and over in his head as he makes his way up the docks, the light of the sunset glowing reassuringly over the water alongside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be pyke's pov again >:3c


	9. surge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 2 am and if i look at this thing in the morning and it's full of typos i will light a firework up my own ass 
> 
> this is a whole lot shorter than i meant it to be, but i thought the flow would get screwed up if i arranged it the way i had originally planned so ummm haha. we switchin back to ekko's pov after this. again. pog.
> 
> EDIT: also the next chapter will probably not take nearly as long as this one did but don't quote me on that

It's the middle of winter in Bilgewater and Pyke can no longer remember how old he is when he realizes that something is amiss. 

He’s not sure exactly when the feeling starts — he sort of just realizes it’s there one day and after that it's a constant presence. It's a strange feeling, occasionally twisting and flipping around unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach like some sort of eel. It’s not the feeling he gets on those occasions when his counter sporadically eats shit — close, somehow, but not quite. It’s constant, and subtler, something like anticipation, but strangely unlike the spike of adrenaline he gets just before he goes in for the kill. Which is weird, because at this point in his life (...death? Afterlife???) there’s not much _to_ anticipate beyond the next kill. Except maybe the kill after that. 

The frustration builds steadily over the course of two weeks. Pyke tries to focus on hunting down his marks — which is strange, because he's never actually really had to _try_ at it before — but everything is suddenly a lot foggier and less _steady_ than it usually is. The anger which usually throws everything into such sharp relief is subdued; suddenly everything is louder, brighter, more jumbled than it usually is. Every distant noise turns his head, every fish swimming past has him spinning in a circle, searching for nothing. Occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, he even swears he can see the silhouette of something — nay, some _one_ , hovering just out of view. When he looks, though, he's only ever greeted by the docks, or by dark, empty ocean. 

Fourteen days pass. In those fourteen days, he loses track of his mark three times; once, he spends an hour looking for a man in the wrong part of the city before he realizes his mistake (he's not even sure how he ended up there in the first place, close to one of the busiest ports in Bilgewater; he must have zoned out at some point while he swam, though why he chose to swim _there_ of all places is entirely beyond him). Sixteen days, and then one of his marks nearly gets away from him when he goes in for the kill ( _almost_ being the key word here. He wasn't a renowned harpooner for nothing). Seventeen days, and he decides he can't afford to ignore the issue any longer. 

Eighteen days, and he finds himself submerged beneath the slaughter docks under the light of an almost-full moon, staring at his gloved hand. The anger in the back of his head has faded from a dull roar to a low, simmering crackle; the eel in his stomach tosses and turns erratically; every cell in his body screams for him to remove the glove. 

Logically, he knows there’s no point in checking; eighteen years and then some and the gap has never closed; why would it change now? Besides, he’s a dead man and a murderer. Dead men and murderers don’t get bright futures or happy endings; they get carrion-birds and rot, maybe a headstone if they’re lucky. 

(Privately, he thinks that maybe the reason he really doesn't want to check is that he doesn't want to face the disappointment of being let down for the millionth time in his wretched existence. He's not even sure if he's capable of such an emotion anymore, but he certainly felt enough of it while he was still alive. He doesn't really fancy the feeling). 

However, he also figures that, most likely, the eel in his stomach and the fog in his head aren't going to go away until he gives into whatever strange impulse has overtaken his existence for some reason. Until then, he guesses it's probably only going to stay this way or continue to worsen, and he'll be damned if he's going to let one of his marks escape for real. If a little disappointment is what it takes for his eternity to get back to normal, then so be it. 

By the dim light of the moon, Pyke undoes the clasp. 

The waterlogged leather catches on his skin, tugging insistently at his wrist, as if in a feeble effort to protect its one last, miserable secret. Then, with one last tug, the fabric comes free, drifting softly in the tide. 

Time lurches to a halt. The water is dark and murky, but a patch of moonlight illuminates the bare skin through the sludge, and Pyke stares blankly at the numbers with a dawning sense of... something. He's not sure what, but the eel in his stomach is writhing harder than ever. 

Four-hundred and thirteen miles on the counter, and suddenly, Pyke is drowning again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's not actually drowning btw he's just a drama queen


	10. disquiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyke looks for advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO. I KNOW I SAID THIS CHAPTER WAS GOING TO BE FROM EKKO'S POV. but. BUT!!!! i had an idea for a scene with pyke and illaoi and i wanted to put it in so. I just kind of inserted it between the previous chapter and the one that was supposed to be next. Sorry!!!! The Ekko chapter should hopefully be up in a few days because I already have it mostly written

It is approximately one o'clock in the morning in Bilgewater, and a chilly winter mist has settled over the port city. The weather is calm; waves lap gently at the shores, moonlight bleaching rocks and sand to blue-silver. On one shore in particular, located on the South side of one of the largest islands, the cold light illuminates the silhouette of a towering woman, standing alone on the beach with her bare toes in the sand. An enormous stone idol is clutched in her left hand. 

As the woman stares out at the open ocean, apparently lost in thought, quiet footsteps sound in the sand behind her. She looks over her shoulder for the source; as she does, a grin curls across her face. 

"Well, well, Ripper." she says. "Fancy meeting you here." 

The man halts in his tracks as the woman turns fully to face him. 

"Illaoi," Pyke says tersely. 

The priestess' grin widens. As the man makes no move to come closer, Illaoi closes the distance herself, striding forward until there are a scant few feet of space between them. Pyke doesn't back away, but Illaoi doesn't miss the way he tenses as she looms over him. He's nervous. Good. 

"I had a... let's say, _premonition_ , that you would come looking for me." she continues, lightly patting the idol at her side for emphasis (Pyke's eyes flicker to it briefly before returning back to her). "So I thought I would be charitable and make it easier for you to find me." 

The harpooner's eyes narrow in an unspoken question. Illaoi answers before he can open his mouth. "Truth be told, I've been interested to meet you for a while now. After all, you're a bit of an enigma, as far as undead go." Her grin widens, making her look wolfish in the eerie light. "A bit of a hazard, too, but for curiosity's sake, I've been willing to tolerate you thus far." 

Illaoi relishes, just a little, in the way Pyke's brows furrow at the thinly veiled threat. 

"So," she continues breezily. "What is it that you ask of me?" 

Though half of Pyke's face is covered by his signature red scarf, it's easy enough to read the impressive scowl on his face. His jaw flexes visibly behind the mask, his fingers curling around the hilt of the harpoon tied loosely at his hip. For a moment, Illaoi thinks he might just draw his weapon and spring at her. Instead, he does something far more surprising — he yanks the glove from his left hand and silently bares his wrist to her. Against his dark skin, the red numbers glitter eerily in the moonlight. 

_384 miles._

Illaoi's grin is positively sharklike, eyes alight with something close to glee. She barks out a laugh, startlingly loud against the soft sounds of the ocean. Pyke almost flinches. 

"Well now, well now." She says, making to grab his wrist and get a closer look. "Now that _is_ interesting." 

Pyke yanks his arm away with a snarl before she can touch him, pulling the counter close to his chest and hiding the numbers from view. "Not happening, priestess." he snaps, taking a few steps back for good measure. "Just tell me what I should do about this." 

Unfazed, Illaoi leans back, raising an eyebrow. "What do _you_ think you should do?" 

Pyke's scowl deepens — he looks like he wants to retort, but the words don't come. He glares stubbornly at the few feet of sand between them. 

"I don't know." 

Illaoi snorts. "Well, they're your soulmate, not mine," she says, placing a hand on her hip. Pyke looks up to glower at her again. 

"You're a priestess, aren't you? Aren't you supposed to be an expert on all this destiny shit?" he says testily. Illaoi fights the urge to roll her eyes. 

"Words like "fate" and "destiny" will only get you so far in life, Ripper." Illaoi says, ignoring his impertinence. "At some point, you have to make the choice for yourself of what you want to do, and what kind of person you want to be." She says that last bit pointedly, but if Pyke notices, he doesn't show it. Still, the harpooner looks unconvinced. Sensing that Pyke is about to argue, Illaoi cuts him off with a raised hand and a sigh. 

"How about this?" she asks. "What do you _want_ to do?" 

Pyke seems to falter at that; his eyes flicker down to stare at the sand again, for the first time betraying a hint of real uncertainty. 

"I don't know."

"Liar," Illaoi says. "You want to go meet them — you know you do, or you wouldn't be here, talking to me." 

Pyke's eyes snap up to look at her once again; there's something close to pleading in his baleful stare. Illaoi sets her idol down by her feet and crosses her arms, unimpressed. 

"You asked me your question, and I have given you my answer." Illaoi says firmly. "The rest is up to you." 

She can see in Pyke's expression how badly he wants to protest, but her words leave no room for argument. Illaoi sees the exact moment in which he comes to terms with it; after several long, tense seconds of silence, the harpooner huffs out a small breath, sets his jaw, and squares his shoulders. Then, with what appears to be a tremendous amount of effort, the Ripper begrudgingly turns away from her, stalking back up the beach with all the reluctance of someone walking to his death. Illaoi has to fight the urge to laugh at his almost comical stiffness.

As Pyke's jagged silhouette retreats into the darkness, his form seems to dissolve into the Bilgewater mist. 

When she's certain he's gone, Illaoi allows herself to grin again, turning around once more to stare at the ocean, bringing a hand to her chin in contemplation. 

"A dead man with a soulmate counter..." she muses, smile growing ever so slightly as she gazes out over the rolling waves. 

"You work in mysterious ways, _Nagakaborous_." 

Illaoi could swear that the hiss of the waves sounds like quiet laughter in response. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just like Bilgewater lore ok 
> 
> (I feel like I'm not good at pacing scenes with characters just talking to each other so I hope this is ok :( )


	11. staccato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter and the next were gonna be 1 chapter but i split them because many things happen

It's about twelve-thirty in the morning according to Ekko's watch, and he's starting to reconsider his decision to continue searching into the night.

Bilgewater is _creepy_ at night, and that’s putting it mildly. The cliffs which were already intimidating in the daytime are downright menacing in the dark, and the crooked architecture creates jagged shadows across the night sky. From the edges of walkways and rooftops, bits of dangly rope and netting sway eerily in the sea breeze; some of them resemble nooses when Ekko looks at them out of the corner of his eye, which is really ominous in a way that he tries not to think about but fails miserably. 

Adding to this sense of foreboding are the wanted posters, plastered on notice boards all over the grimy city. One in particular that catches his eye lists a bounty of one-thousand krakens for its subject's capture — Ekko's not exactly sure what that translates to in Zaunite currency, but he's gathers that it's probably _a whole fucking lot_. The sketch of the subject isn't exactly reassuring, either — outlined in charcoal is a large, broad man with a bald head and arm tattoos, brandishing what appears to be some sort of enormous, jagged knife. The lower half of his face is covered by a bandana decorated with what appears to be an illustration of teeth; the upper half is lacerated by several jagged scars. This intimidating figure is identified only by a title: The Bloodharbor Ripper. 

Something uneasy squirms deep inside Ekko's chest, and he tears his eyes from the poster; he can only hope that this Ripper dude isn't interested in some random kid with a mohawk.

* * *

Ekko tries as best he can to stick close to the light, but the lamps are sparsely placed, and many of them are broken, so it's a bit of a futile effort. It doesn't help that he's starting to see things — ghostly shadows and tiny glowing lights keep turning up at the very edges of his vision, disappearing the moment he turns his head. Based on what he knows, it's probably a soulmate thing, a sign that he's getting close, but that doesn't make it any less disquieting. Especially not when he's still kind of worried about serial killers jumping out of the dark and stabbing him to death. 

... Okay, maybe more than "kind of".

Maybe it's the weight of that fear sitting heavy atop his lungs that causes his nerves to give out. Maybe it's the smell of blood and gunpowder wafting on the breeze, or the looming walls of the alley around him. Probably it's a mixture of all of those — Ekko doesn't really know. One minute he's squeezing his way through some dank, narrow backstreet; the next he's crouched on the ground with his head in his hands, vision wobbling about dangerously and his breath coming in too-short bursts. He can feel blood on his hands, its acrid tang clogging his nose, and he sees Ajuna on the ground, staring vacantly off into the shadows with a bullet lodged in his chest. He puts his hands to his ears to try to block out the shallow breaths rattling in his ears, but the breathing is his own and covering his ears does little to stifle the sound. 

It takes him about ten minutes, sitting there curled into a ball and shaking like a leaf, before the flashback fades away and Ekko manages to get ahold of himself. Sniffling pitifully as he slowly regains his senses, Ekko tugs his glove off of his hand with shaking fingers. He has to squint to make out the writing in the dark, but the numbers are still unmistakably there. _7 miles,_ scrawled plainly on his wrist. 

_Seven miles,_ Ekko thinks. His heartbeat finally begins to slow. He reminds himself of where he is, what he's here to do. _Less than two hours' walk from here; maybe one, if I run._

"... Seven miles." he mutters as he pushes himself slowly to his feet. After a moment of indecision, he stuffs the glove into his pocket. 

_I can do this._

_I_ have _to do this._

Ekko starts walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ekko: boy i sure do hope that ripper guy doesn't take an interest in me because that would be really unfortunate  
> illaoi, spying from afar: *eyes emoji*


	12. apex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you watch your mouth young man!!!!!!!

The almost-full moon drifts ever higher in the sky as Ekko walks, shining through the clouds to stain his surroundings a ghastly grey-green. As far as he can tell from his counter and the time, his soulmate’s position has not changed significantly since he first started walking. He tries not to think about the implications of that. 

By one-thirty in the morning, there are only four miles left on his counter. By two o’clock, there is only one. 

Before he knows it, he's moving at a jog. His counter is ticking down by tenths of a mile, now. _0.5 miles._ Four more minutes, at most. 

Then, the counter abruptly switches units. _One-thousand feet._ He's running full-out, now. Wooden boards groan in protest beneath him, and he's vaguely aware of the smell of death that hangs heavy in the air. The numbers are ticking down almost faster than he can wrap his head around, and he almost runs into a pile of barrels as he forgets to watch where he’s going. Soon, the counter is at nine-hundred feet, then before he knows it, eight-hundred, seven-hundred, six-hundred. _Five-hundred. Four-hundred. Three-hundred. Two-hundred. One-hundred. Fifty._ And then- 

And then Ekko almost goes sailing over the end of the dock, windmilling his arms frantically to keep himself from plunging headfirst into the murky water. He staggers back onto the dock with a few choice words, placing his hands on his knees as he gasps for breath. The air is thick with the smells of salt and blood, making him sputter as he wheezes in and out. 

Once he finally gets his breath back, Ekko straightens up, looking around in confusion at the docks and the turbid water beyond them. _It stinks out here_ , he thinks, resisting the urge to plug his nose with one hand. The water surrounding the docks is swirled together with an unpleasant concoction of blood, grease, and other unidentifiable muck; it’s only barely less disgusting than the nastier areas of the Sump. Along the shorelines, there are several places for ships to dock, and the wharfs are littered with various wood-and-metal structures and contraptions of unknown function. 

_These must be the Slaughter Docks,_ Ekko realizes. So, probably not the best place to be, considering this is where the Bloodharbor Ripper supposedly likes to hang out. Which begs the question as to why his soulmate would be out here in the dead of night in the first place. 

Upon further inspection, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around at all. Ekko guesses that’s probably not a good sign. He squints out over the water, but there are no boats in sight. Still, he gets the uncomfortable feeling that he’s being watched. Slowly, he turns in a circle, scouring the shadows for any sign of human activity, but there’s nothing. Ekko’s stomach twists with unease, and he turns once again to face the ocean. He checks his counter again, frowning. 

The counter reads… ten feet. 

_How can that be?_

Experimentally, he takes several steps backward along the dock. The numbers tick up to fifteen feet. Unease prickles up his spine as a theory begins to form in his head. 

The tension in the air is almost palpable, now, like a rubber band stretched to its outer limit. Ekko sucks in a breath, and jumps once into the air. The counter ticks up to sixteen as he leaps, then down to fifteen again as he lands.

In his mind, the rubber band creaks dangerously. Icy dread fills his veins as, slowly, he turns his gaze down to stare into the filthy water. 

_That could only mean-_

“Fancy device ya got there.”

And just like that, the rubber band snaps.

 _Fuck!_ Ekko thinks, and whirls around.   
  


Four men have emerged silently onto the docks behind him, blocking his exit. He hadn’t seen them when he surveyed the area earlier, so he figures they must have been hiding in the shadows nearby. Maybe the feeling that he was being watched wasn't just nerves, then. 

The apparent leader of the group — a burly man with a scruffy beard and a large scar over his left eye — nods to the bundle on Ekko’s back. “Hextech, ain't it?” 

Ekko glances down at his Z-Drive, swearing inwardly. The canvas wrappings he had used to hide the device have come partially undone, exposing the blue glow of the shattered crystal. 

“...Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t?” he tries. The man just smirks at him. Ekko internally sighs. Of course not. 

“... It is.” he relents, warily pulling the canvas over the Z-Drive to hide it from view. The man’s eyes follow his movements like a predator stalking its prey; he whistles lowly. 

“You know, that stuff’s expensive,” he says, stroking his beard with one hand. His other hand rests on the hilt of something at his hip. A gun or a knife, maybe — Ekko can’t quite tell in the dark, but he really hopes it's not a gun. “A lot of people would be willing to pay good money to get their hands on something like that.” 

“It’s not for sale.” Ekko says tersely.

The man’s eyes gleam; Ekko fights the urge to squirm under their sharp gaze. The other three goons leer at him; one of them begins to crack his knuckles. Their leader gives Ekko an ugly, toothy grin. 

“I’m sure we can work something out,” he says, in a very unfriendly voice. 

Ekko sighs inwardly and rolls his shoulders. It looks like his quest will have to wait. With a surreptitious glance down at his wrist — he barely registers the fact that the counter now reads nine feet — Ekko draws his bat, and charges. 

The man's weapon does, in fact, turn out to be a gun — a six-cylinder revolver of Piltovan make, to be exact. Fortunately, having taken him by surprise, Ekko manages to knock it out of his hands before he can actually do anything with it. He probably also breaks a few of the guy’s fingers in the process, judging by the cracking sound and the enraged yell that follows. The revolver lands in the water with a satisfying splash — shame, it looked like it was probably expensive, too — and Ekko slams his boot into the man’s chest, sending him sprawling onto the planks. 

He doesn’t even have a moment to reorient himself before a shadow looms over him from the left. Ekko ducks just in time; a meaty fist swings through the air where his head had been only a second before. Ekko gives the goon a mighty shove in the sternum, sending him tumbling over the edge of the dock with a scream and a colossal splash. At the same time, he swings his bat out blindly to his other side; there’s a loud thwack and a grunt as he catches one of the other goons in the leg, then a thud as he goes down. Ekko straightens up and readies his bat, and then— 

And then something’s wrapping around his neck from behind and hoisting him up into the air, and Ekko has just enough time to yelp and realize the other guy must have come up behind him before the arm begins to squeeze. Ekko gags, his bat clattering to the wood below. He thrashes in the man’s grip, but he’s a lot bigger than Ekko, and a hell of a lot more muscular. His thoughts turn to his Z-Drive, and he scrabbles frantically for the handle, but it’s still too entangled in the canvas for it to be of any use. 

Forcing down his panic, Ekko does the only thing he can think of — he swings his leg back, hard. His heel connects with the goon’s crotch, and there’s a tremendous woosh of air as all of the breath leaves the man’s lungs at once. 

Fortunately for Ekko, this causes the man to immediately drop him back onto the dock. 

_Un_ fortunately for Ekko, the motion is a little too much for his senses after being hoisted in the air and having his air supply cut off for several seconds. As his feet hit the dock, Ekko pitches forward, the world tilting dangerously around him. 

Then, suddenly, there’s nothing underneath his feet anymore, and the next thing Ekko knows he’s falling ass over teakettle into the Bilgewater ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops


	13. ...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like. ekko cant swim lol 
> 
> bit of an oversight imo, considering he's visiting a city on a FUCKING ARCHIPELAGO

The first thought that pops into Ekko's head as his senses catch up with him is _Ew, nasty!_

The water around him feels slimy and just generally indescribably _awful_ , and he can feel little chunks of _something_ brushing up against his skin, which makes him really want to cry and also puke for several minutes straight. Fortunately, he somehow managed to not get any in his mouth when he fell in, so he’ll take that as a blessing. He's reluctant to open his eyes lest the water give him some kind of horrible infection, but after trying and failing to reorient himself, kicking his feet and scrabbling blindly in the dark, he gives in. 

The second thought that pops into Ekko’s head as he opens his eyes is _Shit…_ _I don’t know how to swim._

Other than the sheen of moonlight glimmering a few feet above him, the water around him is horribly, terrifyingly dark, the impenetrable blackness stretching out for miles all around him. A terrible, illogical panic seizes him; Ekko kicks his legs out frantically, but the Z-Drive and his waterlogged clothes are weighing him down, his muscles already aching from the hike it took to get here, and he can’t quite seem to breach the surface. His lungs are beginning to burn from the strain of holding his breath for too long, and he thinks about how ironic it is that he escaped being strangled only to fall in the water and start drowning and now he’s gonna die anyway—

And then it’s like everything stops and the blood in his veins turns to ice, because right there in front of him in the dark are two blue, glowing lights, hovering several feet away in the water. 

His heart is hammering in his chest, and distantly he realizes that his wrist is tingling like mad. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to flee, to get the hell out of the water, and at first he’s not quite sure why, but now that he thinks about it those blue lights in front of him look suspiciously like eyes...

And Ekko’s stomach sinks with the realization that he is not alone in the water. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bill wurtz voice] ~something's alive in the ocean~


	14. abeyance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyke is many things -- most of them bad -- but he’s never thought of himself as a coward. Now, though, he certainly feels like one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will be posting again tomorrow dw  
> also wowie! 1600 hits!! im gonna print out a screenshot and frame it on my wall

It's two o’clock in the morning in Bilgewater and Pyke is huddled ten feet below the surface of the water, hidden in the shadows of the Slaughter Docks. 

His counter had hit 14 miles several hours ago, at which point the numbers had turned to gibberish six times before beginning a slow, ominous countdown from there. This led Pyke to the unpleasant realization that his soulmate must have reached land, and was now approaching on foot. The feeling of dread that overcame him at this prospect led him here — cowering miserably in the slurry below the docks as his counter ticks down to 1 mile. 

Suffice to say that his conversation (if you could call it that) with Illaoi had been little more than pretense. Honestly, he was sort of hoping she would just strike him down then and there — or, once that was off the table, that she would at least validate his dseparate urge to go hide at the bottom of the ocean until his soulmate finally gave up and left. Ardent maniac that she is, she had of course told him to basically do the exact opposite. Probably something to do with the whole Nagakaborous-pursuit-of-destiny bullshit or whatever — Pyke had mostly stopped caring about any of that stuff after getting eaten by a jaull-fish. 

And look, Pyke is many things, but naive is not one of them. He’s fully aware that going to meet his soulmate can only end badly. Maybe they see him and immediately take off running — or worse, their name appears on his list. Pyke’s made a mental list of all the things that could potentially go wrong, and it’s basically endless. No matter what the ending, it’s only a matter of time — of that, he’s sure. 

. . . 

Pyke is many things — most of them bad — but he’s never thought of himself as a coward. How could he be, after all, when jumping into the jaws of enormous sea monsters had literally been his day job? Now, though, hiding in the dark water, watching the numbers on his counter with bated breath, he certainly feels like one. 

The counter switches units— _1000 feet_ —and the real countdown begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title of this chapter is kind of ironic if ya think about it


	15. cognizance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a medical emergency came up with my mom so this chapter might be a little scuffed 
> 
> edit: thanks for the concern about my mother; she's doin ok, and i wanna clarify that i didn't force myself to write this chapter or anything. it was already pretty much finished by the time i posted the one before it.

999\. 998. 997. 

Nine-hundred feet passes almost faster than he can comprehend, then eight-hundred. Before he knows it the counter is passing five-hundred and he’s left wondering where the other three-hundred feet went. Then four, three, and two-hundred feet pass in what seems like no time at all. 

_100 feet_. If Pyke's heart still beat, he's sure it would be pounding right now.

 _50 feet_. Distantly, he thinks he can hear the sound of footsteps on cobblestones. Despite himself, he strains his ears to hear. 

_25 feet_...

There — the unmistakable sound of boots against wooden boards. Pyke glances up as a shadow darts across the dock— _20 feet—_ and he realizes with alarm that the figure is approaching the end of the dock— _15_ _feet—_ with no signs of slowing down— 

He actually hears the squeal of the person’s boots on the planks as they skid to a halt, right at the edge of the dock. Above him, he sees a blurry shadow teeter dangerously over the edge, flailing arms just barely keeping them from toppling headfirst into the water. They stumble back onto the dock with what Pyke guesses is a string of colorful curse words; his counter finally, mercifully, comes to rest at a distance of 10 feet. 

Pyke lets out a noise somewhere between a snort of amusement and a sigh of relief. He then claps a hand over his face as a cloud of bubbles rises up from his mouth. _Oops._ They probably didn’t see that. 

There’s almost palpable confusion in the way the figure above him fidgets on the dock, turning about restlessly — _wondering where I am,_ Pyke thinks. There’s a little bit of noise from above, the shadow moving back and forth again in apparent puzzlement — there are a few footsteps, followed by a slight thud. As if they had jumped, Pyke realizes.

 _Clever,_ says a small voice in the back of his head.

That voice is mostly drowned out by the much louder, much more insistent internal chant of _Oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck—_

Then Pyke’s brain officially stops functioning for a few seconds as a blurry face peeks out over the edge of the dock. It’s too dark and the water too hazy for him to see much, but in the moonlight he makes out a shock of white hair, and what looks like the shape of a white hourglass against dark skin. And Pyke knows. _It’s them._

Pyke’s chest squeezes, and it’s like he’s been struck by two harpoons which are now pulling him in opposite directions — one towards the surface, one towards the ocean floor — holding him in agonizing suspension. The conflicting urges to swim away and to get out of the water leave him frozen, caught between seconds, teetering precariously on the precipice between fight or flight. 

Then the rumble of a man’s voice pierces the silence, and just like that, the moment is shattered. The face jerks out of view. Pyke shrinks back further into the shadows as, faintly, he hears the sound of several pairs of boots stepping out onto the docks. 

The deep voice speaks again; moments later, he hears another voice, slightly higher than the first, say something in reply. Pyke can’t quite make out the words through the several feet of water between them, but they don’t sound friendly. He swims a little higher, straining his ears to listen, then hesitates; he doesn’t want to risk being seen. 

He glances at his counter. _9 feet._

The conversation tapers off; there’s a brief bout of silence, then an abrupt flurry of movement. A couple of shouts ring out, followed by the sounds of a scuffle. Pyke tenses, weighing the merits of jumping out of the water to join the fray, but is thrown off balance as a large body hits the water with a monumental splash, accompanied by an undignified shriek. Pyke dives out of the way of the flailing mass — he doesn’t have to check his counter to know that this isn't the guy. He growls impatiently swims backwards a few feet, trying in vain to get a better look at whatever is going on up above. 

Vaguely, he notices that the sounds of fighting have momentarily stopped — just as this thought registers, there’s a tremendous thud, the sound of stumbling footsteps, and then a large splash, as something—nay, some _one,_ goes tumbling into the water in front of him. 

_Eight feet. Seven feet. Six feet._ White hair, white hourglass. 

_Five feet. Four feet. Three feet._ A blue glow in the water. 

_Two feet._ Brown eyes. 

...

_1 foot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i posted the last chapter after midnight last night/morning and it's after midnight rn so technically i did what i said i'd do  
>   
> there might be radio silence for a while because school is starting and because i need to figure out how im gonna approach the next chapter. we shall see.


	16. ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm back 😈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now watch me go MIA for another month while i actually write the next chapter
> 
> edit: ekko's arms kinda look like weird little baby arms oops  
> edit 2: i literally hate drawing ekko's clothes so much omg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [(bonus panel)](https://i.imgur.com/96uUr5o.png)
> 
>   
> ok so y'know how my mom was in the hospital for a bit, right? well right after THAT school started so i got completely flooded with work, so i didn't have much time or energy to write. i also had to fix a problem with my schedule, so overall it was all rather stress-inducing. then after THAT my dog died because he was really super old, and that REALLY sucked. 
> 
> so basically what i'm saying is that due to extenuating circumstances i haven't really been able to sit down and write for this for the last month or so. BUT, since things have settled down now and i feel motivated to do so, i can finally get started on writing the next chapter! i'm not sure how long it'll take, so in the meantime i thought i'd put out this little thing to clarify that i'm not dead and i'm not going to be abandoning this fic before it's complete. anyway, love y'all <3


	17. !

Blue-green eyes glow eerily out of the dark, and Ekko's mind throws out a word— _Ripper._

He doesn't have time to attempt to swim away (not that he could if he wanted to), because before he can even blink, the figure is surging past him up and out of the water, leaving a cascade of bubbles in his wake. At the same time, a hand grabs hold of the back of his shirt and pulls — what little air remains in Ekko's lungs wooshes out of him as he's forcefully yanked out of the water, tumbling onto the docks once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2k hits let's get this gamer bread boys


	18. percipience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's election day and i am not having a good time haha :))) anyway

Brown eyes stare out at him out of the dark, round and wide like saucers, and a thought crosses Pyke's mind: _How old is this kid?_

That highly irrelevant thought is quickly tossed aside as Pyke's mind catches up with the much more pressing matter of _Oh shit, this guy can't swim._

He wastes no more time in hauling the guy (boy? man? his _soulmate???)_ out of the water, coming to land neatly on the planks while his soulmate tumbles down behind him with a grunt and a wet slap. 

…Okay, so maybe he could have done that a bit more gently. In his defense, he's in a bit of a stressful situation right now and he's having a hard time keeping his head on straight and trying not to think about the fact that he's _utterly fucking doomed_. Hopefully his soulmate won't be too miffed about it considering Pyke just saved his life and all. 

…Hopefully. 

Pyke takes a couple seconds to survey the scene before him. The goon who fell into the water earlier has scrambled up onto a nearby causeway and is now making a run for it with his metaphorical tail between his legs. The other three are scattered across the dock in front of him in varying states of disarray. One of them clutches several broken fingers to his chest, and another struggles to stand on an apparently busted knee. The third gingerly cradles his groin with both hands.

Pyke can't help but smirk under his bandana. _Hm. Not bad._

As Pyke straightens up to his full height, the three goons turn to look at him fully; the vengeful expressions quickly disappear from their faces, and they all simultaneously blanch in realization.

Twirling his harpoon consideringly in his hand, Pyke contemplates for a moment the merits of chopping these guys up and turning them into fish food. However, a chorus of wet coughing from behind him interrupts his thoughts, and Pyke decides that brutally dismembering these losers is probably not the best thing to do in front of this particular audience (even if they definitely deserve it). So instead, he opts for the much less violent option of gripping his harpoon threateningly in his fist and growling, "Scram." 

It gets the message across just fine. The man with the broken fingers is the first to run, turning and sprinting off into the darkened maze of alleyways without so much as a backwards glance. The other two are slower but no less eager to get away, hobbling frantically up the dock like their lives depend on it (which is, Pyke supposes, a fair assumption). One of them trips on the cobblestones as he's running away, and Pyke feels a twinge of satisfaction as he watches the man's soul practically leave his body in fright. Then the man wobbles to his feet and flees into the darkness, and just like that, they’re gone. 

Hm. It’s kinda nice to not kill people for once. Just a little bit. 

Then there's the sound of something scraping against wood as the person behind him gets to his feet, and Pyke is abruptly jerked back to the present.

Fuck. _Fuck._ Shit. He’s so fucked. _I’m so fucked._

Pyke whips around to find that the boy has finally struggled to his feet; a strange blue bat which Pyke hadn’t noticed before is now clutched in his right hand. Pyke doesn’t think much on it, too preoccupied with taking in everything else about his appearance, trying to memorize every little detail while he can. His eyes linger on the white hourglass painted in the center of the kid’s face — smudged and dirty after being dunked into the harbor, but a striking insignia nonetheless. Its startling contrast against his dark skin is matched by his silvery-white hair, on which Pyke can’t quite decide whether it’s dyed or not. It’s barely clinging on to the shape of what appears to be a mohawk; in spite of whatever sort of rock-hard concoction of hair gel is holding it together, little tufts of hair fall into his face. He puffs at them in annoyance, and when that doesn’t work, pushes them irritably out of his eyes with his free hand. 

His eyes…

...Well, they’re brown. That’s not really surprising. It is the most common eye color in Runeterra, after all — certainly is in Bilgewater. Hell, Pyke himself had had brown eyes too, before the whole dying thing happened and they started glowing all green and shit. Totally not worth it, by the way. But… whatever. Point is, his eyes are brown — the same shade of brown as just about anyone else’s.

...There’s something about his though — sharp and intelligent, shrouded by deep bags, with a glimmer of mischief lingering just beneath the surface — that makes Pyke's gaze linger for three, four, five seconds longer than it probably should.

Then those eyes flick up to look at him, and Pyke is dead, he's _so_ dead. _Shit._

He watches as soulmate’s face flickers through several different emotions in the span of a few seconds, all of them too fleeting for Pyke to decipher properly, before settling into something unreadable. Calculating. His eyes flick back and forth, taking him in — searching for something, maybe. His eyes linger on Pyke’s gloved wrist. 

When his gaze finally roams upward to meet Pyke’s, his brows twitch, something uneasy flickering behind his eyes — not fear, exactly, but close. It’s gone within seconds, but Pyke groans internally. _Fuuuuuck._

The kid shifts his weight uneasily, one hand still tight around the bat in his hand; the other tugs at a canvas-wrapped parcel on his back, from which Pyke can see a faint blue glow emanating in the darkness. He doesn’t have the mental wherewithal to ponder on what it is at the moment. The silence is heavy, charged with a question that neither one of them needs to ask, because they already know. _He_ knows. The silence is a ticking clock. A rope stretched to its limit, ready to snap. 

The kid speaks first. 

“You’re the Ripper.” It’s not a question. 

Pyke nods, slowly. 

His soulmate frowns; a small crease forms between his eyebrows. _That’s cute,_ a part of Pyke’s brain remarks. _Shut the fuck up,_ replies the rest of him. He cringes a little bit. 

“... I’m guessing that’s not your actual name, though.” the kid states flatly.

_...Huh???_

After a few bewildered seconds, Pyke realizes he should probably respond.

He clears his throat and says, eloquently: “Um… it’s Pyke.” 

...At this point it would probably be best for him to just go curl up and die in a hole somewhere. 

His soulmate’s frown deepens; he looks away, appearing to mull over Pyke’s reply for a few seconds. Pyke’s not really sure what there is to mull over, so he takes that as a bad sign. 

After a pause, he turns back, looking him straight in the eyes with that same, unreadable expression.

“I’m Ekko.” 

Pyke ’s dead. He’s so, so dead. More so than before. He’s known this kid for all of thirty seconds and he’s definitely going to kill him. Again. 

An uncomfortable silence settles over them again, this one somehow more unpleasant than the last. The kid—Ekko—doesn’t speak this time, though, seemingly at a loss for words.Pyke shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, then coughs uneasily. 

“... So, uh… how old are you, kid?” he says, very intelligently. 

Ekko visibly bristles.

Pyke thinks he might as well just curl up and die right then and there. 

After a short, uncomfortably heavy pause, Ekko replies testily: “I’m eighteen.”

Then he fidgets a little bit, and looks away, seeming to deflate a little. 

“... And a half.” he mutters. 

He scowls, shuffling his feet awkwardly, and… okay, that’s a little bit adorable. _Dammit._ Well, at least he’s an adult. That’s one less fucked up thing that Pyke’s going to have to deal with today. That just leaves... about three billion other things. Great. 

Pyke opens his mouth to say something else (something very insightful, no doubt) but, Ekko blurts out first. 

“I-” 

...

…He pauses, staring at Pyke with an expression that is more emotive than before yet somehow even less decipherable. If Pyke had to say, he would say he looks constipated, which is… definitely not an emotion, and also tells him nothing at all. Ekko scowls at him, eyes flickering back and forth as if he’s searching for the right words in Pyke’s appearance. Then, all at once, he seems to deflate. He sighs a little bit, placing a hand to his forehead, boring holes into the dock for several long seconds before looking back at Pyke with a gaze much older and wearier than it should be. 

“...We need to talk.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know if i like this chapter but i do know that i'll probably never be totally satisfied with it anyway so i just said fuck it and decided to post it anyway


	19. divulge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm thinking abt writing a true damage au fic (also pyke/ekko) where pyke becomes a bodyguard for true damage,, thoughts?

Ekko’s always thought of himself as a fairly smart person. Maybe that’s a bit cocky, but it’s true. Not many people, after all, could invent a time machine — let alone while living as a desperately poor 15-year-old.

Now, though, he’s not so confident. In fact, he’s pretty sure that _this —_ that is, inviting a serial killer to come sit with him on the beach and talk about their feelings — officially makes him the dumbest person in the world.

Said terrible, horribly idiotic decision has brought them here, huddled awkwardly on the sand on one of the cleaner beaches of Bilgewater. They’re seated a careful three feet apart from each other, according to Ekko’s counter. Ekko’s wet boots have been set aside, his bare toes buried in the sand; the rest of his clothes are soaked too, though, and he’s shivering in the cool night air. He draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around himself, but it does little to block out the cold. Definitely not his most shining moment. 

_Idiot,_ he thinks. _Fucking moron. President of the shit idiot club. Stupid._

At the edge of his vision, Pyke casts occasional glances in his direction — pitying, maybe, or perhaps concerned. It’s a little bit hilarious, considering that a) he’s an actual murderer, and b) he, too, is soaking wet. Strangely, though, he seems completely unbothered by the cold. Ekko’s a little envious. 

They sit there in silence for what feels like hours, but in reality is probably only about ten minutes. Ekko picks up small handfuls of sand and lets the grains trickle through his fingers; if things were different, he thinks, he’d probably take some time to admire the scenery. As it is, though, the sound of the waves and the feel of the sand between his toes does little to ease the tension tugging at the air between them. 

Surreptitiously, Ekko casts a glance in Pyke’s direction. The man stares distantly out over the ocean, gaze unfocused — at least, Ekko thinks it is. It’s hard to tell when his eyes are so distinctly… inhuman. There’s also the bandana obscuring half his face, making his expression pretty much inscrutable. Ekko can’t get a read on him. 

Frowning, he turns his eyes back to the ground in front of him, and picks up another handful of sand. 

“... So. You’re like… dead?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Pyke shift slightly. 

“... Yeah.” he says. He coughs. “Well, I mean, not _dead_ dead, obviously, but I’m not really... _alive,_ in the traditional sense.”

Ekko gives him an unimpressed look. Pyke appears to grimace behind his bandana. The silence is deafening. 

Ekko looks away, gaze turning to the waves this time. The ocean is mesmerizing to look at — it occurs to him, briefly, that he’s never actually seen the sea before this trip. 

“And the whole… killing people thing.” he says. 

Pyke actually flinches a little, and looks away uneasily. 

“It’s… hard to explain.” 

“Try.” Ekko says flatly.

...

Pyke sighs. 

“... When I died,” he begins. “I was… well, I got eaten. By a jaull-fish.” When Ekko quirks an eyebrow, he explains: “It’s a really big fish with teeth to match. Kind of like a shark, but about a thousand times nastier. Lot more valuable, too.” He fiddles idly with that large, jagged, knife-thing of his. Ekko eyes it warily; Pyke doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I was a harpooner. The day I died, I was out there, doing my job like always, but the captain I was with this time around was... inexperienced. Partway through the hunt, a pod of ‘em — jaull-fish that is — showed up, and he lost his nerve.” Pyke frowns, expression darkening considerably. 

“He cut my line, and I got swallowed. My crew stood there and watched as I died.” 

He pauses. 

“... Except I didn’t die. Not properly anyway.” 

Pyke’s grip is tight around his weapon, now. Ekko shifts uneasily in the sand, eyes trained on the jagged blade. Finally noticing his discomfort, Pyke has the grace to look apologetic, and places the harpoon gingerly in the sand next to him (Ekko relaxes just a bit). He crosses his arms and seems to fold in on himself. 

“There are… things down there, in the ocean. In the places that are too deep for humans to go.” Pyke says as he frowns behind his bandana, like he’s trying hard to find the right words. “Huge, terrible, _ancient_ things. Things humans can’t understand; things humans probably aren’t _meant_ to understand.” 

Pyke seems to suppress a shudder, and his expression clouds over with something dark and unreadable. Ekko’s heart beats an unsteady rhythm inside his chest; the hand on the side farthest from Pyke wraps subconsciously around the hilt of his bat. 

“... I remember there were lights.” Pyke says slowly, like he’s straining to remember. “Lots of little blue lights, all around me. Thousands of ‘em. And there were these… there was something talking to me. Not voices, exactly, but… something was saying something. Echoes… visions of… of…” 

Pyke trails off, staring blankly off into the middle distance with those glowing eyes of his, shoulders hunched and tensed, hands clenched tightly into fists. He stays like that for several seconds. Then, the tension seems to leave his body all at once; he slumps forward in a way that seems almost defeated. 

“They were angry.” he says flatly. “At what, I don’t know. The world, maybe; just in general. But they were angry, and they wanted me to kill. So I did.” 

Pyke looks down at where his harpoon lies discarded in the sand; he stares at it for a long, silent moment. When he speaks again, there’s something almost like disgust in his voice. 

“At first, it was about getting revenge on the people who had wronged me, who left me die,” he says. “Or… that’s what I thought it was, at least.” 

Pyke scowls, turns his gaze back on the ocean; Ekko stares at him, hanging raptly on to every word. 

“After a while, though, I figured out that it wasn’t my own revenge I was taking anymore. Maybe never was — at that point, it didn’t really matter. I couldn’t stop. They wouldn’t let me stop.” 

He’s silent for several long moments.

“...I didn’t know what else to do. ” he says feebly. 

The harpooner settles into a defeated silence, hunching in on himself as he gazes out over the ocean with a faraway look. Ekko keeps staring at him for several long moments. 

Though he knows he probably shouldn’t, in that moment, Ekko feels a pang of pity for the man. 

He turns his gaze back to the sea. 

_...What a fucking mess._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was procrastinating on doing homework so i sat down and wrote this in like one sitting


	20. disarray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyke is kind of an asshole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back hoes

They sit there in silence for a long time, both apparently lost in their own thoughts. Pyke's not sure how much time has passed — maybe a couple of minutes, maybe a couple of hours — when Ekko flops back into the sand with a loud groan, shoving the heels of his hands into his eyes. Pyke glances over at him, frowning. 

"God dammit. This sucks. This _sucks. Fuck._ " Ekko says. 

Pyke snorts. "Oh. Is that all." 

Ekko scowls behind his hands. "What? It does. What do you want me to say? 'Oh, sorry you died and got cursed by a bunch of fucking _evil fish_ , that must be really rough.' Which it is, but still. _This—"_ he gestures vaguely around him, "—is super-duper spectacularly _fucked_.” 

He slaps his hands back over his face again. Pyke stares at him, bemused. 

"...You know,” he says slowly, “I feel like that’s a pretty underwhelming reaction to the revelation that I’ve been cursed by evil spirits to kill people for all eternity. I mean, you could at least run away screaming in terror or something. I’m almost insulted.”

"...You’re a dick.” Ekko says. 

"Yep. Would've thought that the whole "serial killer" thing woulda tipped you off." Pyke snickers. 

Ekko glares at him through the gaps between his fingers, but he’s clearly trying to hold back a grin, which only makes Pyke chortle harder. They have a short staring match before the harpooner swallows his laughter and looks away, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. Out of the corner of his eye, Ekko grumbles and lets his hands fall to his sides.

There's a long, heavy pause. 

“...So what do we do now?” Ekko asks in a small voice. 

Pyke winces, then, a sudden weariness washing over him. 

“Look, kid—” 

“Stop calling me that.” Ekko interrupts peevishly, shoving himself into a sitting position. “I’m not a kid.” 

Pyke rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure, whatever, kid, it—” 

“Ekko.” 

“ _Ekko.”_ Pyke concedes. He pauses to draw a breath, trying to get his bearings. The sea whispers quietly in the background; Pyke forces himself to focus on the sound. It’s grounding, in a way. 

“This whole… curse thing, or whatever it is.” He begins slowly. “It’s not the kind of thing I can just… _fix._ Might not even matter if I did, at this point, with how many people I’ve killed.” 

He fiddles with his harpoon and shrugs lamely, staring down at the sand. 

“I’m a _serial killer_ , kid.” Pyke says bluntly. “You probably don’t want anything to do with me. You _shouldn’t_ want anything to do with me.” 

He can feel Ekko’s eyes burning holes in the side of his head. He shrugs again, like it’s simply the most logical way to look at the situation, like the words aren’t tearing him up from the inside out. 

“So I’m giving you an out, here.” he says quietly. “You go back to Zaun, leave me here, and we forget this little encounter ever happened. You get on with your life, I get on with mine, and it’s like we never even met." 

His stomach feels like lead. 

“And hopefully, in a few years, you find someone else without a soulmate, who _isn’t_ a murderous psychopath, and you forget I even existed in the first place.”   
  


Ekko's already shaking his head before he finishes getting the words out. 

"No. _Hell_ no." Pyke glances over at him quickly; Ekko's glaring at him so hard that Pyke thinks he might actually be able to feel it scorching his skin. "After all the time I spent agonizing wondering what could have happened to you, after I dropped _everything_ and risked my life just to come over here and fucking find you, you’re want me to just _leave_ and never come back?” 

Pyke can’t come up with a response; he looks away guiltily.

Ekko snorts disbelievingly. "You’re serious.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters _what the hell_ under his breath. Pyke feels a prickle of irritation. 

“Yeah, I’m serious.” Pyke growls. “Matter of fact, it seems like _you’re_ the one who’s _not_ taking this seriously. This isn’t a _game,_ kid; this isn’t some fucking fairytale where you can just swoop in and save the day with the power of love or— or whatever the fuck. This is real life, and sometimes real life sucks ass. And you just have to deal with it.” 

Ekko bristles. “I know that already, I’m—” 

“—An immature, hot-headed teenager with visions of grandeur and a hero complex, yeah.” Pyke cuts him off. Ekko sputters indignantly, but Pyke just shakes his head and turns to look at the ocean, jaw set firmly. 

“ _Go home, kid,”_ he says, his voice hard, _“_ and no one gets hurt.” 

Ekko stares at him incredulously for several long moments; his hands, balled into fists, twitch slightly, as if he’s straining hard to reel in his anger. He takes a long, slow breath that hisses out through his teeth when he exhales. 

“If you think I’m just going to _give up_ ” he says flatly, “you're out of your fucking mind." 

"Figured that one out all on your own, did ya, sweetheart?" Pyke says icily.

"You are such an _asshole_!" Ekko exclaims, and promptly slugs him in the face. 

Pyke grunts, startled, tipping backwards into the sand. Wow, okay, that kind of hurt— like, a lot, actually. In fact, he’s pretty sure he heard some bones break on impact, and yeah, that’s definitely gonna be a nosebleed. 

By the time he sits up and blinks the stars out of his eyes, one hand clamped over his nose, Ekko is storming away up the beach. His bat is clutched in one hand, his ruined shoes and socks in the other; the canvas-wrapped parcel is slung across his back once more. He doesn’t spare Pyke so much as a backwards glance as he stalks up the shoreline. 

_...Well, I guess that worked._ Pyke thinks with a trace of bitterness, attempting to stem the flow of blood. Still, he can’t tear his gaze away from Ekko's retreating form, continuing to stare until he moves between a cluster of rocks and buildings and disappears from view.

Something in Pyke's stomach twists painfully. 

He spends a long time after that watching the numbers on his counter tick upwards, ticking up by a couple miles as the moon sinks lower and lower in the sky. Eventually, the numbers stop ticking; Ekko must have found somewhere in Bilgewater to spend the night. Still, he can’t help but watch the numbers for a while after that, before he finally manages to tear his gaze away.

". . ."

The moon is low in the sky — it’ll be daylight soon, Pyke thinks. He should leave. Instead, he sits there on the beach with his knees drawn up to his chest, brittle and hollow, and feeling for all the world like he's just lost something extremely important. 

Ekko’s name plays on repeat in his head. Pyke rests his head on his knees and closes his eyes. 

Two miles.

_What a fucking mess._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't originally going to have them get into an argument but it's ~realistic~ (also i thought it would be kind of funny if ekko punched pyke in the face). anyway. 
> 
> p.s. illaoi will be making another appearance in the next chapter because she is nosy 
> 
> p.p.s. i very much enjoy writing pyke using terms of endearment like sweetheart/honey/etc. 😳 even if it's meant to be condescending 😔


	21. reproach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school was kicking my ass but now all i have left are the ez classes >:)c 
> 
> i was going to say something else here but i 4got what it was so im gonna edit it in later

Such is the state that Illaoi finds him in a day later, sitting hunched over on the moon-bleached boards of the Docks, moping the night away. Because of course, with Pyke, nothing is ever bound to be simple. 

Illaoi observes him from a distance at first, reasoning that maybe, just maybe, someone  _ will _ show up after a while. After about thirty minutes of waiting, though, she concludes that no one is coming. With a small sigh, she strides out onto the planks. 

She knows he hears her coming by the way his spine tenses ever so slightly — however, he must have some inkling of who she is, because he doesn’t turn to look at her. He seems to curl further in on himself as Illaoi comes to a halt, a few paces behind him. It’s pretty pathetic, honestly, but Illaoi gets the feeling that snarking at him right now will probably just cause him to get stabby with her, so she decides not to comment. 

“So... I take it it didn’t go well, then?” 

Okay, so, maybe that was still a little too snarky. 

Pyke still doesn’t turn around, or respond at all (though his hand twitches slightly towards his harpoon, lying next to him in the sand), but Illaoi can tell he’s scowling. When several more seconds pass without a response, she carefully walks around his side and settles down with a sigh on the docks, a few feet away. That actually does earn her a glare, but the Ripper still doesn’t speak. 

After a tense pause, Illaoi says: “It is still not too late.” 

Pyke doesn’t respond. Illaoi tries again, more insistently. “He will not give up on you so easily. You can still—” 

“It’s none of your fuckin’ business,  _ priestess.”  _ Pyke snaps, spitting out the last word like something foul. 

Illaoi rolls her eyes in exasperation. 

“You are mad because I am right. If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here, on the docks, where you know he will not come after you. Not after what happened last night.” 

Pyke shoots her a look that’s less poisonous this time — startled, maybe, like she knows more than he thought she did. Illaoi smirks a little, and his face quickly morphs into a scowl again, turning to stare down at his waterlogged boots. 

“’S for his own safety.” Pyke mutters. “Hangin’ around me is more trouble than it’s worth.” 

It’s almost honest, Illaoi thinks. But not quite. There’s something the harpooner is not telling her. 

“...You’re scared.” Illaoi says slowly. “That he’ll get hurt because of you. But also because you fear that he will run.” 

Pyke’s shoulders hunch further, but he says nothing. 

“You’re scared to get hurt again.” she says simply. 

There’s a pause.

“I’m not worth stickin’ around for.” he finally mumbles, voice sounding impossibly small. “He’d figure that out on his own anyway. Sooner or later.” 

There's silence for a moment. 

"Do you really believe that?" Illaoi finally asks. 

Pyke doesn't answer. 

...

After another long pause, Illaoi sighs and, leaning over, gives him a hearty pat on the shoulder. Pyke stiffens, and for a moment Illaoi wonders if he's going to hit her, or maybe even stab her; his hand clenches around his harpoon in a bruising grip. However, after several seconds, he does neither, and his eyes are still fixed resolutely on the sea when Illaoi pushes herself to her feet. 

Hefting up her idol with a small grunt, Illaoi turns to him once again. 

"You shouldn't worry so much, Ripper." she says, with a sharp-toothed grin. "Ekko is, after all, much more determined than you." 

With that, she turns and strolls back along the dock. Pyke shifts behind her; she feels his gaze prickling at the back of her neck like a candle flame. Still, she doesn't spare him so much as a backwards glance. 

As she passes out of view behind a cluster of fishing shacks, the sensation fades. The priestess lets out a long-suffering sigh and turns her gaze up to the night sky.  _ Men,  _ she thinks wearily.  _ Thick-headed and stubborn, even in death. _

The stars twinkle mischievously above her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you believe i thought i would finish this in may of 2020 lmfaooo
> 
> I HAVE SIXTY NINE BOOKMARKS LETS GOOOOOOO


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